The Curse of the Giant Hogweed Read online

  “What the hell?” was his natural reaction.

  “Oh, sorry.” Above the twanging of agitated harp strings, the apology came loud and clear. “Force of habit.”

  The speaker was, as perhaps Peter might have expected, a giant. A mere stripling among giants, to be sure: probably not more than seven feet in height and a paltry yard or so across the shoulders. Still, this was an impressive enough giant to dream up on one’s first try. Peter Shandy would not have wanted a larger giant. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted this one.

  However, the giant’s not uncomely countenance looked amiable enough, not to say contrite. “ ’Tis this goddamn enchantment I be under,” he was explaining. “I haven’t got used to traveling without my lance. I mean, ye meet a wizard, it’s ye customary etiquette of ye geste to ram ye old lance tip up against his tabard and make him confess what he hath been up to. Ye blasted wizards be always up to something.”

  He straightened the wreath of giant hogweed that had slid cockeyed on his flowing golden locks, hitched up the skirt of his white robe to scratch a thigh the size of an oak bole, and sighed. “I forget what ye protocol be for a bard in a situation like this. Ye wouldn’t happen to recall, I misdoubt me?”

  “Sorry,” Shandy answered. “I’m a—er—stranger here, myself. Do I gather you are in fact a knight errant who’s been turned by some form of necromancy into a traveling poet?”

  “Urrgh,” said the giant. “I hight Torchyld y Dewr. Highted, I mean, until this morning. I wot not what I hight now. Torchyld yr Anobeithiol, perchance.”

  “Too bad,” Shandy replied, knowing somehow that the former meant The Intrepid and the latter meant The Hopeless. “Not about the Torchyld part, I mean. Torchyld’s a first-rate name. I know somebody with a name very much like it. As a matter of fact, you remind me—”

  “Arrgh!” the giant interrupted. “Never mind that. Ye be supposed to tell me how ye hight. I remember that much anyway.”

  “So I am. Well, I—er—hight Peter Shandy. Actually I’m not a wizard. I’m a professor.”

  “A what?”

  “A—er—teacher.”

  “Oh, a druid. Why saidst ye not so in ye first place? Dost ken any poetry?”

  “Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. Have you heard the one about the young lady of Niger who smiled as she rode on a tiger?”

  Torchyld clearly had not. Nor, as Shandy realized a few syllables too late, would he be likely to know the meaning of either Niger or tiger. The sample had been ill-chosen. But why did the giant have to cry about it? For crying, Torchyld incredibly was.

  “Dash it all,” snapped Shandy, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Here, take my handkerchief and blow your nose, like a good chap.”

  It was then that he became aware he no longer possessed a handkerchief, nor a pocket to carry one in. Like the enchanted warrior blubbering before him, he was wearing a longish robe of what might in a romance be described as fairest white linen. To Peter it looked coarsely woven, badly wrinkled, and none too clean.

  As for the handkerchief, Torchyld wouldn’t have known that word either, and didn’t appear to be interested. He merely sniffed a mighty sniffle and ignored the tears on his cheeks, this being evidently some kind of Golden Age when a man didn’t have to go around acting manly if he didn’t happen to feel like it.

  “I weep for ye Lady Syglinde,” he explained with simple dignity. “Ye being a druid and therefore possessed of unbounded wisdom, I perceive a kindly spirit hath set me in thy way, that I may unto thee my woeful tale unfold. Prithee haul up a root and ease thy feet. This may take a while.”

  “I’m in no hurry,” said Peter, draping his laundry more snugly about him and settling into the shade of a giant oak. Tim and Dan must be just about getting to work on their second pints by now, so he might as well nap a while longer. This dream was beginning to liven up.

  “Okay, shoot. That is—er—unfold thy tale. What happened to Lady Syglinde? Did she get enchanted, too?”

  “My Syglinde be herself an enchantment,” Torchyld groaned. “Forsooth, had it not been for that old hag Dwydd, we should e’en now be wending our way to the battlements, thereon to plight our troth. Syglinde and I spend quite a lot of time plighting our troth,” he admitted with what might in a less awesome figure have been described as a boyish grin. “At least we did, until Ffyffnyr disappeared.”

  “You did say Ffyffnyr?”

  “In sooth,” Torchyld replied in some surprise. “So did ye also. Why not? That be his hight.”

  “Yes, but who is he?”

  “Meseemed ye druids be supposed to wot this stuff. He be my great-uncle Sfyn’s pet griffin.”

  “Drat it, you can’t expect me to remember the name of every griffin that comes flapping along,” said Peter testily. “We druids have far weightier matters to occupy our minds. What’s so special about Ffyffnyr?”

  “He be not a bad old scout, as griffins go. Great-uncle Sfyn hath him trained to roll over and play enchanted, sit up and beg for boiled eels, give ye his talon, all kinds of cute tricks. And when ye throne room groweth too cold, Ffyff can always breathe fire and warm ye place up.”

  “M’yes, I see. A comforting sort of beast to have around, no doubt. You spoke of a throne room. Your great-uncle would then be King Sfyn?”

  “Aye, so he be. And I be his great-nephew and Syglinde his ward. She and I had it all fixed up we were going to get wedlocked and build ourselves a cozy little castle with our own portcullis, and settle down to raising eels in ye moat and digrifwvch in ye royal chamber.”

  Shandy didn’t have much trouble figuring out digrifwvch, either. “Your own castle, eh? Then you’re not in line to inherit your great-uncle’s kingdom?”

  “Nay, druid, I be only—let’s see.” Torchyld tried counting on his fingers, but gave it up as a bad job after two. “To begin with, there be his sons, Prince Edmyr, Prince Edwy, and Prince Edbert. My father was King Sfyn’s nephew Lord Edolph, but taddi got eaten by a garefowl one day when he was out hunting sea monsters. Or perchance it was ye other way around. My mother was never clear as to ye details. She wasted away.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Gramercy, druid. Where was I? Oh yes. After my uncles there be Uncle Edmyr’s son Dagobert. He be ye crown prince now. His brother Dilwyn used to be, but Dilwyn perished at ye last new moon of a surfeit and bloody flux. Then there be Edwy’s son Owain, and Edbert’s sons Gelert and Gaheris. Those be all my cousins. Ye legitimate ones, anyway. The rest count not. There be female cousins, too, but they also count not in terms of ye succession. My aunts be always nagging me to marry one of ye girls now that I be rich and famous.”

  “Are you, forsooth?”

  “Forsooth, verily. Wist ye not? I be he that slew ye wyvern. See ye, this wyvern gan laying waste ye countryside, kidnapping fair maidens and whatnot. Eftsoons ye wyvern gan carrying off sheep, too. So then something had to be done. So I did. So I made claim to ye wyvern’s hoard.”

  Shandy had been under the impression it was dragons that had hoards, but perhaps a wyvern counted as a kind of dragon. He thought he would not raise the question. No doubt druids were supposed to know all about wyverns, too.

  “Ah, yes,” he said briskly. “Speaking of wyverns, let’s get back to Ffyffnyr.”

  “Ffyffnyr be a griffin.”

  “So you’ve already informed me. The difference being that a wyvern has only two front legs, the hinder part of its body being serpentine in form. A griffin is just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill quadrupedal cross between a lion and an eagle. With wings, needless to say. Both are members of the genus Bestialis mythicus.”

  “I wot not of learned tongues,” Torchyld answered rather sulkily. “Hast ever slain a wyvern with a disenchanted sword and two stale biscuits, druid?”

  “No, I can’t say I have,” Shandy admitted. “Nor should I care to try. That must have been a feat unparalleled for valor, not to mention agility and resourcefulness. You used the biscuits as bait, I a
ssume?”

  “Nay,” quoth Torchyld. “I but stood waiting till he got close and opened his jaws to devour me. Then I chucked ye biscuits down his gullet and rammed them into his windpipe with ye point of my sword. So when he tried to breathe fire at me, he backfired and fried his own gizzard.”

  “Good Lord!”

  “Well may ye say so,” Torchyld replied with a self-satisfied smirk. “Ye accursed sword was otherwise useless. I had essayed to hew him in twain with one blow as is my wont, but ye damned blade wouldn’t even cut through ye first layer of scales. Baleful Dwydd had cast an evil spell on it and had not e’en shown ye courtesy to taunt me with her perfidy as I was setting off on my geste. She but handed me ye biscuits with a fiendish leer, and went flapping off to her turret.”

  “This—er—Dwydd lives right in King Sfyn’s castle?”

  “Aye, verily. Ye can’t have a castle without a wicked hag roosting in one turret or another, ecod. It be not ye done thing. Syglinde and I had been wondering where we could find one for our own love nest. ’Tis a job to tax a wizard, tracking down a really rotten beldame these days, I tell ye. Most hags be but mean-tempered because the damp getteth into their aged bones and they lack a pet griffin to keep them warm. Syggie said perchance we might take in some poor soul who needeth a home and make believe she be evil. What difference? All this keeping up with ye Penjoneses can be carried too far, meseems.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Shandy told him. “Perhaps you and Lady Syglinde can start a fashion for keeping a good hag instead of a bad one.”

  “And why think ye I shall ever get a chance to start anything?” Torchyld snarled. “Gin I fail to get Ffyffnyr back, I be forever banished from the kingdom and Great-uncle Sfyn will marry off my darling Syglinde to yon scurvy, stinking, caitiff louse Owain.”

  “Your cousin Owain is also interested in your—er—much-betrothed?”

  “She dealt him perforce a lusty buffet with a trencherful of boiled eels but four e’ens agone. Great-uncle Sfyn nigh brast a gut laughing.”

  “Then what are you blethering about? Lady Syglinde is obviously a young woman who knows how to handle herself in a clinch. And if the king is so partial to Owain, why would he have laughed?”

  “It was funny,” Torchyld replied. “I laughed, also. Then I wrapped a brace of eels around Owain’s neck and stuffed their tails down his ugly throat and made him eat them or choke. He broke out in spots next morning. Boiled eels always give Owain spots. Great-uncle Sfyn was still laughing about ye spots, until he found out Ffyffnyr was agone.”

  “How did Ffyffnyr go?”

  “How should I know, prithee? He went. One minute he was there trying to sneak a boiled eel off the banqueting board. The next minute he was gone. Poof.”

  “You observed this poof? That is to say, you actually saw the griffin disappear?”

  “How could I? Have I eyes to see what was and is suddenly not? Anyway, I was up on ye battlements at ye time.”

  “Getting in a spot of troth-plighting while you were fresh and rested, eh?”

  “Nay, I was on guard duty. A castle’s safety rests on its sentries’ eyeballs. We keep aye a sharp lookout for ogres and dragons and marauding armies and suchlike.”

  “See many of them around these parts?”

  “Off and on. Ye know how it be. Anyway, I was up there keen-eyed and vigilant, setting an example to ye lower ranks according to court protocol and military discipline. Had Ffyffnyr flown off, I could not but have seen him. I saw not, so he hath not.”

  “Was he in the habit of flying off?”

  “Nay, Ffyffnyr might take a little spin around ye turrets when he felt ye urge, like any normal griffin, but he cameth always back. Ffyffnyr be no grifflet, ye ken, and he hath been a pet all his life. Great-uncle Sfyn’s own father, Sfynwair ye Compassionate, found him in a cave barely out of ye egg, and brought him back to ye castle for Sfyn to play with. They were babes together, and they’ve grown old together.”

  Torchyld began to cry again. “Curses, it rotteth mine guts to think of yon fat old griffin in some ogre’s stewpot, and Great-uncle Sfyn back there alone in ye banqueting hall with his mustache dragging in his metheglin. He be like to pine away without Ffyff, damn it.”

  “You don’t suppose that’s what somebody had in mind?” Shandy ventured..

  “Ungh?”

  “I don’t want to raise unjust suspicions, Sir Torchyld, but might not one of your uncles, to raise a hypothetical question, have a hankering to become king in his father’s stead? After all, if Prince Edmyr, Prince Edwy, and Prince Edbert all have grown sons of their own, as you told me, they can’t be getting any younger themselves. The longer King Sfyn hangs on, the more likely it appears that certain of his heirs could die without ever getting a whack at me throne, doesn’t it?”

  “Mine uncles be not magicians,” Torchyld protested. “They be but princes. In sooth, they get fed up now and then. I gainsay ye not that it be possible one of them might wish to hurry Great-uncle Sfyn along a trifle gin he foundeth a chance, but look at ye facts. A mere prince wotteth not to make a griffin go poof. A prince can’t do much of anything except ride off on gestes and rescue beautiful princesses from monsters and evil wizards. My uncles have all been down that road long ago. Bethink ye, once a prince hath rescued one beautiful princess, that first princess be like to wax exceeding wroth gin he goeth off and rescueth another. I know because Uncle Edwy tried it. Aunt Edelgysa found out and beaned him with ye thighbone of a sheep.”

  “Gad,” said Shandy. “I hadn’t realized food could be such a dangerous weapon.”

  “Did I not tell ye about me and ye biscuits?”

  “You did. Now tell me more about Ffyffnyr. Has he any distinguishing features? That is to say,” Shandy amplified since Torchyld looked puzzled at his choice of words, “is he in any way different from other griffins? Aside from being old and fat, that is?”

  “He weareth a collar of purest gold, richly engraven and set about with blazing gems.”

  “Excellent. Anything else?”

  “He be red.”

  “Redder than most griffins, you mean?”

  “Redder than any griffin other than he. I wot not what color ye griffins be whence ye cometh, druid, but around here they be mostly brownish yellow with green and purple streaks. Sometimes find we a griffin that be all green or all purple or kind of plaid, but no man ne yet no maid hath ever before nor since found a red one. That be why Sfynwair ye Compassionate kept Ffyff in ye first place. Ffyff waxeth somewhat gray around ye muzzle now, but still gleameth he as red as ye lips of my beauteous Syglinde.”

  “You’re not going to cry any more, I hope,” Shandy pleaded. “Try to keep your mind on the griffin. When did you find out he was gone?”

  “When ye guards came to seize me.”

  “They seized you? Off the battlements, you mean?”

  “Nay, druid, I said not they seized me. I said they came to. I tied them together in pairs by ye hairs of ye heads, and dangled them over ye parapet until they changed their minds and let me walk down by myself. So I went into ye great hall and found Great-uncle Sfyn waxing wrother than ever I have seen him wax before. All my aunts and uncles were standing around giving me dirty looks, and Dwydd was hopping and cackling and pointing her finger at me, in accordance with standard court procedure for evil hags. Dwydd wotteth her job, I’ll say that for her. So then everybody started hueing and crying about what had I done with Ffyffnyr. Then I realized Syglinde wasn’t there.”

  “Because nobody was getting beaned with a trencher, I suppose?”

  “In sooth. So I gan yelling what ye hell were they all yelling about and what had they done with Syglinde? So Uncle Edmyr said never mind Syglinde, where was Ffyffnyr? So I asked him how was I supposed to wot?”

  “A reasonable question.”

  “So then Dwydd hopped and cackled some more, and ye gist of her cackling was that I had spirited Ffyffnyr away by ye same mystical power I used to kill ye wyvern. That
be a lot of dragon feathers and I told them so. But they believed me not.”

  “Why, do you suppose?”

  “Because Uncle Edmyr and Uncle Edwy and ye rest be ashamed for that they themselves fared not forth to slay ye wyvern, and ye women are ashamed of their men for being a bunch of llwfryns but dare not say so. Gin they can all fool themselves into believing I, a mere great-nephew of the king, performed that mighty deed of valor by a cantrip spell instead of with a disenchanted sword and—”

  “Two stale biscuits,” said Shandy. “A shrewd observation, Sir Torchyld. So that’s their story and you’re stuck with it.”

  “True, O druid. Great-uncle Sfyn commanded me to search ye world over if need be, until I find Ffyffnyr, or ne’er again will I embrace my darling Syglinde. And just as I was leaving, Dwydd slapped this goddamn enchantment on me to make my search impossible. So here I be with no sword, no lance, no horse, nothing but a harp and a tin ear, forsooth. What the uffern be I to do?”

  “What would you do if you were a real bard?”

  “Oh, meseems I would charm ye birds of ye air and ye beasts of ye field and ye minds and hearts of men and women with ye power of my voice and all that ffolineb. How do I wot what I would do? I have ne’er been a bard before, and I be not one now. And I be doomed ne’er to betroth my Syglinde again!”

  “Drat it,” snapped Peter, “if you don’t quit blubbering, I’ll disenchant you myself.”

  “Canst, druid?” Torchyld grabbed his arm in a grip like a griffin’s. “Why said ye not so in ye first place?”

  “M’well, frankly, I didn’t mean that in quite the way it came out. That is to say, we druids have to—er—observe the druidical protocol, you know. We can’t simply go around disenchanting people without—er—studying their cases first, you know.”

  “Nay, I wot not,” howled the ill-made bard. “I but wot gin ye fail to disenchant me and help me get Syglinde back, I wot to wrap thy neck around thy knees and use ye for a football.”

  Chapter 3

  AN ANTHROPOLOGIST MIGHT HAVE been interested to learn King Sfyn’s great-nephew played football. Peter Shandy was only concerned with whether his oversized new acquaintance really meant what he said. This dream was getting awfully physical.